


The Sky Changed Color

by Soliyra



Series: In Loving Color [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Crack, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, POV Eliot Waugh, Soulmates, Strong Language, Todd cameo, dum bois are dum, no beta -we die like ADULTS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22479616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soliyra/pseuds/Soliyra
Summary: Eliot is excited to finally meet his soulmate...but when he does, things don't exactly go as he'd expected.
Relationships: Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: In Loving Color [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1445542
Comments: 26
Kudos: 92





	The Sky Changed Color

**Author's Note:**

> This one goes out to everyone who read “Could I, Um” and commented: “Wow, imagine what it must have been like for _Eliot_! Now you don’t have to imagine. 
> 
> It also goes out to the person who recently commented “uh, is there going to be a second part?” then immediately deleted the comment (it emailed it to me. Sorry.) Thank you for reading, especially after all this time. 
> 
> “The Sky Changed Color” envelops [“Could I, Um. Can I Speak To Your Manager?”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19332910) The stories take place concurrently and run parallel, though TSCC gives glimpses of what happens before and after part 1, while glossing over some of the dialogue in the middle. I wrote assuming that you already know what happens. If you haven’t read “Could I, Um” and this sort of thing is going to bother you, I suggest checking it out before reading “The Sky Changed Color.”

It was just like a year earlier, when he’d met Margo.

It was nothing like when he’d met Margo.

A year ago he’d been in the exam room, blinking at the shifting characters on the page in front of him, when a beautiful woman had walked into the room, five minutes late, chin held high, like she’d owned the place. He registered medium-toned skin, huge, dark eyes, and carefully styled hair. And then things had started to change.

He didn’t understand at first, just stared, frowning as _something_ was suddenly different about her skin… and eyes, and hair. Something his brain didn’t know how to process. She looked more alive. Brighter, somehow, like someone had just turned on a light. Warmer, though her arrogant expression hadn’t changed. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it at first. He knew he was staring, but couldn’t tear his eyes away. It took him several moments to realize that his mind was chanting a word he’d known forever but had never understood the meaning of:

_Brown, brown, brown, brown._

He watched her as she strode to the proctor’s desk at the front of the room, snagged an exam sheet from the pile there, and lowered herself into an empty seat, front and center, where everyone could see her. She smoothed her dress (a fashionable sheath in bold blocks of black and white, one-shoulder, pared with glossy, white pumps with slender, four-inch heels and black soles), and began writing. And, as Eliot watched, the _something,_ the _color_ began to bleed into everything around her. Soon he was seeing yellow, blue, and green. Most of the students were dressed in shades of gray, like he was, or black and white, like the woman he’d begun to think of as “Bambi” based on her gigantic doe’s eyes, but some wore colors. One young man actually wore a different color for every article of clothing, some with (oh god) _colored patterns._ It was positively offensive. Physically nauseating. Eliot had heard the phrase ‘clashing colors’ but hadn’t realize just how _painful_ it could be in practice. Either the boy had no sense of style or he didn’t care that he was wearing colors he couldn’t see. Probably both.

Eliot made a mental note to avoid the poor child in the future. His newly-perceptive eyes wouldn’t be able to take it. He _didn’t_ think about how his heart was beating hard and fast, attempting to batter its way out of his chest, because having meaning to these words, “brown,” “yellow,” “clashing,” meant that his life was about to change. That it had already changed. That Bambi was going to be the most important person in his life (or one of them, at least. Sometimes these things weren’t entirely clear, and, honestly? A _woman?_ )

He tried not to think about it as he finished his exam, as he stood to turn it in. Took long, even breaths, trying not to think about it, as he left the exam room. Tried not to think about it as a surprisingly strong, sharp-nailed hand dug into his upper arm, preventing him from exiting the building.

“Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are,” Bambi growled, “but we need to fucking _talk._ ”

…  
This was nothing like that. It was _exactly_ like that.

For one thing, this time Eliot had known it was coming.

He’d been called to the Dean’s office earlier that day. Henry Fogg had looked up at him with tired, only slightly bloodshot eyes, sighed deeply, and handed Eliot a white index card.

“This,” he’d said in his clipped yet resonant basso (it was a hell of a voice. Eliot took notes in case he decided to imitate it later), “is the name of your soulmate. You will meet him on the quad and escort him to the exam room.”

 _Are you joking right now?_ Eliot thought to himself, but outwardly all he could say was, “What? How…?”

The Dean sighed again and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Never mind that,” he said. “Let’s just say that watching you two dance around one another has been enough to strain even my considerable patience.” Eliot did not consider Fogg’s patience to be ‘considerable,’ but, as they say, ‘never mind that.’

“The hope, this time,” the Dean continued, “Is that if we speed things along you’ll be a little less…” he looked Eliot up and down, endlessly weary, “ _…you._ ”

He sighed yet again, rolling his eyes, and reached under the desk for a bottle of whisky and a highball, popping the cork as he said, “You’re dismissed,” and poured himself at least three fingers. He didn’t look at Eliot again.

Eliot had turned on his heel and strode out of the office, trying not to think about what was meant by “this time.” He was thinking only of how his life was about to change, once again.

…

This was it. The day he’d been dreaming about since he was a child. He’d spent so many hours of his lonely childhood imagining the person he’d meet one day, the one who would end that loneliness. He pictured a girl at first, of course. That was how everyone talked about it. “ _She, she, she._ ” The girl who would change his life, so he would never feel alone again. He was almost ten when he realized that, no, it was ‘ _he_.’ It had to be. (Of course, his pre-pubescent self hadn’t accounted for Margo, but can one ever _truly_ account for Margo?)

Still. _He._ The boy who would change things forever. Who would light up his world. Who would complete his soul. Eliot imagined him a thousand different ways on the walk from the Dean’s office to the quad. A thousand different faces as he changed clothes five times, trying to get the look just right. A thousand outfits as he touched up his hair and makeup, hands shaking. A thousand body-types as he walked from the cottage to the quad. He thought of looking at the card a thousand different times, but couldn’t do it. His fingers were frozen with fear, the side with the name written on it held resolutely down, where he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t look, because if he looked, it would be real, and if it was real…

He couldn’t look. He walked faster, his stride eating up ground as he crossed the campus.

Soon, there was nowhere left to run. He stood in the grass of the quad, card in hand, and contemplated his next move.

Moments later he had scaled the Brakebills sign and carefully arranged his limbs atop it for maximum attractiveness, artfully relaxed. Effortlessly elegant. Untouchable, yet seductive.

He lay there, deftly smoking, for more than fifteen minutes before he realized that he had never checked the card with the man’s name. Well, not much that he, an intellectual, elegant dandy could do about that now. Reading it would ruin the aesthetic. He had one chance to make a memorable first impression. Which was why he could absolutely not look at the card. Shame. He would simply have to put all of his attention into waiting and being beautiful, smoking his cigarette just so, a single dark curl adorning his forehead, and then...

The sky changed color. It had been blue, but now it was BLUE. He swallowed down a sudden wave of nausea, releasing the smoke in his lungs into the vibrant sky in a slow, controlled, perfectly calm breath. He raised his head, looking out over the quad, and he was there.  
Eliot watched as he stumbled out of the bushes. As he dragged himself across the courtyard, wide-eyed, mouth agape. He was vaguely aware of the colors deepening all around him, red, green, and blue glowing at the edges of his vision, but his entire being was focused on the man walking toward him. Brown tweed coat. Shoulder bag. Ridiculously adorable hair that fell nearly to his shoulders, framing the handsomest face Eliot had ever seen.

He was still staring (obliquely, rakishly) when he, the boy, slowed to a stop a few yards in front of him, and for one bright, beautiful moment, everything was perfect.

Of course it couldn’t last. Lady Reality just had to drop in, like she always did, and ruin his special day.

The card was the first thing to go wrong. He was hit with the sudden realization, the sinking feeling, that he had to look at it. To give a name to the pretty face. To actually start thinking of his soulmate as a person.

He sat upright, which was just as well; he’d needed to discreetly shift, as the front of his trousers was getting a bit tight (this was one of the ways in which this was different from meeting Margo). He finally, reluctantly, looked down at the card in his hands and read the name inscribed upon it.

It was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever read. He couldn’t believe he’d have to say it out loud.

“Quentin Coldwater?” he asked, not sure if he was hoping for an affirmative or not. It was possible that “Quentin Coldwater” wasn’t his soulmate’s name at all. Maybe Fogg was playing some sort of sick joke.

The boy nodded. “Uh-huh.” No such luck. Well, Eliot could make the best of a bad situation. He dismounted the sign, preening and towering over the gaping prospie, delighting in his obvious shock and discomfort. Eliot tended to have that effect on people.

He looked the boy up and down, taking in every detail of his beautiful, bedraggled appearance. Absurd name notwithstanding, he could get used to having this one around. He was just so _cute_.

“I’m Eliot,” he said shortly, with a tight smile, steeling himself for what would come next. His heart swelled as he continued, nervous and hopeful, “your soulmate.”

“Uh...” said Quentin, which was understandable. Eliot was a lot to take in. He waited, patiently.

Then Lady Reality dropped her other shoe.

“...No?” squeaked Quentin.

What.

The fuck.

“No?” said Eliot, “What do you mean, ‘No’?”

What followed were among the most painful moments of Eliot’s young life. Certainly the worst since he’d met Margo and found out he was a Magician. He stood there as Quentin, who was obviously Eliot’s soulmate (even the Dean had known that, somehow), rejected him.

Apparently, Quentin already had a soulmate. And the way he kept looking at Eliot… It was a look he knew well. He’d been getting it his whole life. The one that said, “You’re different, and that makes me afraid.” And now it was coming from his soulmate. The one person who was supposed to accept him unconditionally.

If even his soulmate hated him, how could anyone possibly…

He tried to flee. He couldn’t do it. He was drawn to Quentin like a moth to the proverbial flame, tethered by an unseeable force. They were connected, like it or not. He couldn’t escape. So he stayed in the courtyard, agonizing though it was, watching the younger man fumble with his phone. He had nowhere else to go.

And now Quentin is on the line with customer support. Claiming there has been some kind of mistake. And now the phone is singing, “Love, love, love,” adding insult to grievous injury. And Eliot just stands there, like the fool that he is, trying to pretend he isn’t breaking into pieces.  
Quentin is on the phone with what Eliot believes is the second customer service representative, complaining, once again, that Eliot isn’t, “can’t be,” his soulmate. In between sentences, he keeps looking back at Eliot with that look. He hunches forward and lowers his voice, but not enough, because Eliot can make it out (barely) when he hisses, “He’s, um. You know. A _guy_.”

There it was. Everything that Eliot had feared. “Fabulous,” he says, “My soulmate is a straight boy. I’m going to die alone.” He pauses a moment, then adds, “And celibate.” An acerbic afterthought to hammer the point home.

As if to confirm Eliot’s worst fears, Quentin says, “And! I’m not...I’m not gay!”

The hell you’re not, thinks Eliot, looking at the overly vivid scene around him. The campus is incredibly vibrant. Irritatingly so, in Eliot’s current mood. Like one of Todd’s horrendous outfits. And if that alone weren’t enough to betray Quentin’s preferences, Eliot’s fully chromatic vision meant it was impossible to miss the blush in his cheeks when he looked at Eliot, cresting to scarlet when they had stood nose to...well, chest...and Eliot had introduced himself.

On the heels of that thought comes, Aren’t we a little old to be doing this? I mean, grad school? Really?? Eliot had been nine years old when he’d realized that his romantic soulmate would be male. Nine! And even then, he’d been…

He’d been terrified. Confused. Alone.

He watches as Quentin insists that he likes girls. Can’t help but chuckle when he says his soulmate is someone called ‘Julia’ and the woman on the phone laughs in his face, her voice emanating from Quentin’s cellphone in raucous peals that echo through the courtyard. The look Quentin gives him is priceless. Serves you right, you little bitch, he thinks, then immediately regrets it.

He wonders what it would have been like if he’d met Margo, before. Before he knew.

And then, while he still watches, Quentin breaks down.

The small man sinks to the grass, curling into a quasi-fetal position, taking no care for the wellbeing of his garments. He speaks quietly to the woman on the phone. __Eliot can’t hear what he says, but he can see it when he wipes away a tear._ Aww. Baby._ He’s already thinking about how he’s going to get the grass-stains out of tweed and corduroy.

Quentin glances up at him, brown eyes shining. He says, “Yeah, he’s here,” before quickly returning his gaze to his shoes.

And then Quentin looks up.

He meets Eliot’s eyes, and his own are so brown it hurts, so intense it burns. Eliot’s breath catches in this throat. He is used to people looking at him. They've looked at him with awe and fear. With hatred, with disgust, with naked ardor. He’s used to it. He leans into it, welcomes it, the good and the bad. But, he realizes, as he melts into those puppy-dog browns and his heart dances, nobody, not even Margo, has ever looked at him like _that._

_Brown, brown, brown, brown._

Quentin is still holding his phone to his ear, still looking into Eliot’s eyes. His eyebrows rise almost to his hairline, then draw together. Neither of these does anything to dispel the impression of a Yorkshire terrier, confused but earnest, silky hair waving in the slight breeze. _Can we keep him?_ Eliot thinks to himself, then, _Yeah. I think we can._ The lines at the corners of his soulmate’s eyes deepen, and one corner of his pressed-lipped mouth turns upward. Eliot feels his own lips doing the same.

“I…yeah,” says Quentin, to the woman on the phone. “Yeah, I think I can do that.” His face relaxes into a broad, dopey smile. It grows even wider, even brighter as he ends the conversation with a warm, “Thanks.”

Brightness surrounds Eliot, and, for the first time, it seems to fit. The blazing sun, the brilliant colors all around him, Quentin’s blinding smile, and the lightness in the pit of his stomach all go together like a tie and a pocket square. It’s not that they match. They aren’t the same. They _go_ , in a way that’s easy to see but impossible to define.

Quentin puts his phone away. He stands up, brushing his pants with his hands, though they remain wrinkled and tinged grassy-green. He is looking down, but Eliot can still see his smile: a big, dopey, ridiculous grin that dimples his cheeks and seems to warm the air around him. The sunlight paints his soft, brown eyelashes gold and casts their feathered shadows on his cheekbones.

Eliot stands frozen as Quentin approaches him. He is avoiding eye-contact, but his face is warm. He looks like someone struggling to keep a delightful secret. His shoulders are drawn together, but it doesn’t look like revulsion. Nervousness, maybe? His fingers are twitching, tapping a complicated rhythm on his palms.

His clumsy, turned-out gait has brought him close enough that Eliot could reach out and touch him: brush the soft hair off his forehead and out of his eyes, and still he keeps moving closer. Close enough that Eliot could wrap his arms around him, could tuck him under his chin and keep him there forever. He stops, then, body inches from Eliot’s. He takes a deep breath in, and looks up.

Eliot swallows. He holds his breath, speechless, powerless before that gaze. The walls and gates he built around his heart had always seemed so strong, like iron and stone. He never realized they were built of ice until they melted, leaving him undefended, ankle-deep in chilly water.

Quentin smiles up at him, face soft and open, and says, “Hey.”

He’s here, and he’s real, and he’s so, so beautiful, and Eliot feels like he’s standing on a threshold. This is a beginning. It’s the beginning or something wonderful.

Eliot says, “Hey.”

Quentin’s eyebrows move. It’s half a frown, though his mouth is still smiling broadly. He opens it to speak. “I, uh…” he says, then stops. He shrugs, mouth and shoulder moving in unison. Then, suddenly, he rises up on his toes and kisses Eliot’s waiting lips.

He kisses back: deeply, urgently, like he’s still not sure this is real, still not sure it won’t be snatched away in an instant. It doesn’t feel like a first kiss. It feels like he’s been waiting to do this forever, like _they’ve_ been waiting for this forever, but they move together like they’ve been kissing each other for decades. Lifetimes, even. Eliot’s left hand moves without his input, floating to shoulder height and landing on the back of Quentin’s neck: the final puzzle-piece slotting into place.

When Eliot breaks off the kiss, it is because he wants to look at his soulmate, remind himself that this is really happening. Quentin stands motionless, eyes closed, mouth open, hair disheveled. Eliot cannot resist smoothing it down.

Quentin opens his eyes.

“Hey,” says Eliot again, laughing softly to himself.

“Hey,” says Quentin. His brow contorts. “So, uh.” His eyes dart around the courtyard. ”What exactly is this place?”

_Oh fuck._

Eliot sags dramatically, his arms still wrapped around his soulmate, hands loath to break contact. “Shhhhiiiiiittttttt,” he says. “The test.”  
Quentin is alarmed. His frown deepens as his eyes widen, and he tilts his head to the side in that adorably canine way that Eliot does _not_ have time for right now. “Wha…” he starts to say.

Eliot pulls himself together, straightening his spine and assuming what he hopes is a dignified expression. “There’s no time,” he says. “You’re late.” He runs his hands over Quentin’s body one last time, finally breaking away with an affectionate (if awkward) pat on the shoulders. He takes a few strides away then executes a perfect half-turn. He ends facing Quentin, feet together, chin held high.

He imbues his grin with all the magic and mystery their future at Breakbills will hold. “Follow me.”

**Author's Note:**

> “The Sky Changed Color” was incredibly difficult for me to complete. This piece has been sitting on my computer at 95% completion for about 5 months now. Over the summer, when I was in a very different headspace I wrote the beginning of it as kind of a warm up for another project I never completed (sorry). I was struggling to find Eliot’s voice, so I decided to return to ‘Colorverse’ to dissolve the block. Before I knew it I had written about half of this. Then most of the other half. Then something happened. 
> 
> For reasons I can’t explain, being here started to hurt worse. I began to dread engaging with any fan-content; the negative feelings had become so overwhelming I couldn’t enjoy reading fic or browsing art, let alone creating. I slowly began to remove myself from the fandom, as a matter of self-preservation. Every project I managed to finish became ‘one more for the road.’ A final gift to the fandom before I disappear completely. January approached inexorably, and I went about putting my fandom affairs in order.  
> And that whole time, _In Loving Color_ part 2 sat on my computer, 161 words from completion. 
> 
> Look, having almost-done projects sitting around makes me anxious.  
> So, why now? Idk. Maybe it was that comment. Maybe it’s January and I’m having a lot of Feelings and this is a way to process them. Maybe I’ve been listening to [“Chips” by SHREDDERS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pZMDOsx3l4) too many times (NSFW lyrics). “Big love, big joy is an act of defiance. You can fight it…or you can find it.” Maybe I’m trying to be defiant in one of the few ways I have left. Maybe I just wanted that sweet-sweet kudos validation. Idfk.  
> Either way, I hope that another nugget of soulmate fluff will help you get through whatever it is you’re going through. Here’s one more for the road. 
> 
> [re: commenting on this work: please leave comments regarding the text of this piece and its companion, but know that I have no idea of anything that has happened since about October 2019, and I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW. Please be respectful; don’t make me regret posting this. Thank you.  
> Also, I know I did a weird thing with the tenses. It was a choice. You get what you pay for.]


End file.
